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Now it may be observed, first of all, that we cannot hold
utterly cheap either the indeterminate, or even a Kind whose very
idea implies absence of form, provided only that it offer itself
to its Priors and [through them] to the Highest Beings. We have
the parallel of the Soul itself in its relation to the
Intellectual-Principle and the Divine Reason, taking shape by
these and led so to a nobler principle of form.
Further, a compound in the Intellectual order is not to be
confounded with a compound in the realm of Matter; the Divine
Reasons are compounds and their Act is to produce a compound,
namely that [lower] Nature which works towards Idea. And there is
not only a difference of function; there is a still more notable
difference of source. Then, too, the Matter of the realm of
process ceaselessly changes its form: in the eternal, Matter is
immutably one and the same, so that the two are diametrically
opposites. The Matter of this realm is all things in turn, a new
entity in every separate case, so that nothing is permanent and
one thing ceaselessly pushes another out of being: Matter has no
identity here. In the Intellectual it is all things at once: and
therefore has nothing to change into: it already and ever
contains all. This means that not even in its own Sphere is the
Matter there at any moment shapeless: no doubt that is true of
the Matter here as well; but shape is held by a very different
right in the two orders of Matter.
As to whether Matter is eternal or a thing of process, this will
be clear when we are sure of its precise nature.
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